"Volunteers to clap hands!" he would call and four or five brothers jumped into the middle, clapping hands to the verses of a simple hymn, repeated ten or fifteen times. Brisker and brisker the tempo became, till the captain and his volunteers found themselves galloping around the ring, with sweet bonneted faces eagerly chanting their accompaniment. Aronson marveled but he did not sneer. For his gaze was on the rosebud mouth, whose "Alleluias" (adapted from his own liturgy, he knew) seemed to him the sweetest music mortal throat ever gave forth, the distilled honey of sound.
After more than an hour of such missionary effort, the captain called for a show of converts. "Hands up, all that have the love of the Lord in their hearts!"
Two seafaring men and a darky had the courage to show their palms, and they were standing very near the circle.
"How many souls love Jesus who died on the cross?"
Aronson, still at his post, felt a traitorous gladness when a dozen more of the crowd gave the signal of assent. This meager harvest of souls was the result of their labors. Then Pineapple Jupiter again bent his back under the heavy bass-drum, and the army reformed. Tumtyty, tum! Tumtyty, tum! Tumtyty, tumtyty, boom! The ringing bugle revived the languishing interest of the mob. One Jew of the Jews followed the music for nearly a mile. When he finally fell to the rear the rosebud mouth was still singing:
"What will Peter say, Christian soul?"
and he felt as if a great light had come to him and then vanished again, leaving a deeper darkness than ever.
Next morning he awoke with a rapid pulse. "What will Peter say, Aronson?" he asked as he drew on his garments, and when he sat down to copy a brief for Shagarach, "What will Peter say, Aronson?" the question again recurred. Strangely enough, it always took the clear, shrill accent of the girl. "What will Peter say, Aronson?" was the prayer for success he offered, when a week later, he mustered up courage to cross the mission threshold and ask Jupiter her name.
From that day Saul Aronson was an altered youth. The least beat of a drum in the Ghetto found him ready to quit dinner or company or work and fly out of the house with a hasty snatch at his hat in the entry.
Sometimes he returned with a rueful look and then his mother knew it was only the Garibaldi guard parading. But at other times it was a subject of remark how long he stayed and how moody he returned.